The Jazz Mann | Jazz music reviews and news from the Jazz Mann Ian Mann

Winner of the Parliamentary Jazz Award for Best Media, 2019

Jazz Album Reviews

Tim Garland and Geoffrey Keezer

Mezzo

Ultimately the triumph is Garland's, the instigator of the project and its principal composer, and also a true virtuoso of that rarest of musical beasts, the mezzo-soprano saxophone.

Alyn Shipton’s New Orleans Friends

The Oxford Concert

Five-Way Split

Modus Operandi

Shai Maestro

The Guesthouse

Taupe

waxing / waning

Jazz Sabbath

Jazz Sabbath Live

Aleph Aguiar

Sugar on my Blackbeans

Jazz Mann Recommended Listening

Billy Marrows Band

Dancing On Bentwood Chairs

Marrows impresses as a guitarist and even more so as a writer. His compositions are intelligent and imaginative and embrace a wide variety of influences, musical and otherwise.

Julie Campiche

Unspoken

Her most personal, but also most political, recording to date “Unspoken” represents a powerful and thought provoking statement from Campiche.

Harry Christelis

Preserving Fictions

Another impressive statement from Christelis, the composer and principal architect of this intriguing, intelligent, immersive and often beautiful music.

Søren Bebe Trio

Gratitude

Perhaps the ultimate expression of the Bebe Trio’s sound. They have distilled the essence of their music and have ‘polished the diamond’ to sparkling perfection.

Live Jazz Reviews

BMJ Collective with Sean Hargreaves

BMJ Collective with Sean Hargreaves, Black Mountain Jazz, Melville Centre For The Arts, Abergavenny, 12/04/2026.

Let Spin

Let Spin, Shrewsbury Jazz Network, The Hive Music & Media Centre, Shrewsbury, 11/04/2026.

Philip Clouts Quartet

Philip Clouts Quartet, Music Spoken Here, The Marr’s Bar, Worcester, 09/04/2026.

Dom Franks’ StrayHorn Quintet

Dom Franks’ Strayhorn Quintet, Corn Exchange Jazz Club, The Corn Exchange, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, 09/04/2026.

Small Blue

Small Blue, Jazz at Progress, Progress Theatre, Reading, Berkshire, 27/03/2026.

Brass Band Bychan

Brass Band Bychan, Black Mountain Jazz, Melville Centre for the Arts, Abergavenny, 29/03/2026.

Jazz Mann Features

Music Spoken Here, Worcester celebrates fourth birthday.

Instigated by Dave Fuller in 2022 Music Spoken Here presents contemporary jazz, fusion, funk and soul on a fortnightly basis at The Marr's Bar, Worcester.

Jazz a Juan 2026 - A Preview.

Colin May looks ahead to the 65th edition of the French jazz festival Jazz a Juan, which will take place in July 2026, and interviews two of its organisers, Reno di Matteo and Maryline Bailly.

Jazz Mann News

Jazz in the Gardens Brings Friday Night Jazz and more to Nine Elms and Battersea, London - Friday 1 May until Friday 17 July 2026.

Friday, April 17, 2026

World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens welcomes back its seasonal concert series – Jazz in the Gardens. From late spring to early summer it will host nine concerts on Friday nights. Press release attached.

Public nominations are now open for the 2026 Parliamentary Jazz Awards.